about Caps Lock being usless: With the swiss german keyboard layout, capslock doesn't at all work like it would if you pressed and hold shift:

Caps Lock only affects normal letters that actually have a uppercased form.

So if Caps Lock is enabled and you press the a-Key, it'll convert it to A. But if you press the 5-key, it'll do nothing. This is different from any other keyboard layout I know where it would be converted to Shift-5 (% here).

This is interesting, because we have some accented characters available on shifted keys.

]]>By: Aaronhttps://pthree.org/2007/03/06/switching-caps-lock-and-backspace/#comment-36827
Wed, 07 Mar 2007 13:42:29 +0000http://www.pthree.org/2007/03/06/switching-caps-lock-and-backspace/#comment-36827Ralesk- The point, as you pointed out, is to move the caps lock away from the user, and put in it's place a much more used key, in my case, the backspace.

Miles- I'm not removing it, but moving it. The caps lock still exists on my system.

Can Bican- Good idea! Placing the caps lock as a meta key under/above the scroll lock is a perfect idea.

Garren- If you have put the switch in your ~/.xmodmap file, it will take effect at startup. Setting the repeat is the only thing that you need to do manually. However, you can have a script launch that at startup as well.

Brian- The code for the escape key is 0x09. Now that I think about it, putting the escape key is where the Windows key is is a great idea, just because of vim.

]]>By: Brianhttps://pthree.org/2007/03/06/switching-caps-lock-and-backspace/#comment-36779
Wed, 07 Mar 2007 08:27:09 +0000http://www.pthree.org/2007/03/06/switching-caps-lock-and-backspace/#comment-36779Does anybody know the code for the escape key? Would be a lot quicker when using Vi..
]]>By: Danhttps://pthree.org/2007/03/06/switching-caps-lock-and-backspace/#comment-36771
Wed, 07 Mar 2007 07:33:55 +0000http://www.pthree.org/2007/03/06/switching-caps-lock-and-backspace/#comment-36771I tried to do this, but realized that I am uneducated and stubborn.
]]>By: Garrenhttps://pthree.org/2007/03/06/switching-caps-lock-and-backspace/#comment-36761
Wed, 07 Mar 2007 06:03:50 +0000http://www.pthree.org/2007/03/06/switching-caps-lock-and-backspace/#comment-36761I was wondering how to have it stay like this at startup
]]>By: Garrenhttps://pthree.org/2007/03/06/switching-caps-lock-and-backspace/#comment-36760
Wed, 07 Mar 2007 06:03:08 +0000http://www.pthree.org/2007/03/06/switching-caps-lock-and-backspace/#comment-36760I was wondering how I get it to stay like this at startup
]]>By: Can Bicanhttps://pthree.org/2007/03/06/switching-caps-lock-and-backspace/#comment-36683
Wed, 07 Mar 2007 00:32:24 +0000http://www.pthree.org/2007/03/06/switching-caps-lock-and-backspace/#comment-36683The keyboard is full of stuff nobody ever used, layout is inconvenient for any language on earth, so if caps lock is the last problem yet to be solved, let's solve it but not lose it. How about giving the function of caps lock to scroll lock? 😉
]]>By: Mileshttps://pthree.org/2007/03/06/switching-caps-lock-and-backspace/#comment-36671
Tue, 06 Mar 2007 23:02:23 +0000http://www.pthree.org/2007/03/06/switching-caps-lock-and-backspace/#comment-36671But, I need Caps Lock on Linux. Not on Windows, but I need it on Linux. Without it, I wouldn't even be able to type caracters such as Ç or É.
]]>By: Chris Humphrieshttps://pthree.org/2007/03/06/switching-caps-lock-and-backspace/#comment-36633
Tue, 06 Mar 2007 20:40:12 +0000http://www.pthree.org/2007/03/06/switching-caps-lock-and-backspace/#comment-36633But my control key is there! 😉
]]>By: Rickhttps://pthree.org/2007/03/06/switching-caps-lock-and-backspace/#comment-36615
Tue, 06 Mar 2007 18:44:53 +0000http://www.pthree.org/2007/03/06/switching-caps-lock-and-backspace/#comment-36615I love this tip. Using caps lock for control has been so nice on the hands and I try to get as many shortcuts to a control combo as I can. Ctrl-q for yakuake, ctrl-space for gnome-launch-box. Good stuff. One tip, in gnome in ubuntu you can make this change by going to System->keyboard->Layout Options->Ctrl Key Position. It gives you several options on just what you want to do with it.
]]>By: Raleskhttps://pthree.org/2007/03/06/switching-caps-lock-and-backspace/#comment-36610
Tue, 06 Mar 2007 18:28:05 +0000http://www.pthree.org/2007/03/06/switching-caps-lock-and-backspace/#comment-36610Interesting choice!

I’m not a fan of wasting time with unlearning and then re-learning so many reflexes, which you have to revert the very moment you have to sit at a computer that’s not yours — hence why I still use a QWERTY layout (although yes, under AltGr I can reach anything I need, including Hungarian characters); but as I don’t use Caps Lock either, and I got severely annoyed by its presence a couple times before, I too changed it to something more fun: it’s become my Compose key. Works like a charm 🙂